Extensions come to Opera Mobile

By Andreas Bovens

When adding extensions support to our Presto engine back in 2010, a lot of time was spent behind the scenes so as to make our extensions framework very versatile and lightweight. Although the initial release was targeted for desktop only, every aspect of the extensions API was drafted with mobile in mind.

Today, we're happy to present you with a Labs release of Opera Mobile with support for extensions!

This is a very early Labs release and it's not quite certain at this point that extensions functionality will effectively make it into a future release of Opera Mobile; the design is also most definitely not final, and there are some rough edges here and there, but if that doesn't scare you away – and why should it! –, you can find an Opera Mobile Labs build with extensions support for Android below. In addition, we've released extension-enabled Opera Mobile Emulator Labs builds, so you can test your extensions in a desktop-based Opera Mobile instance as well.

Once you've downloaded a build, you'll want to head over to the Opera Extensions site, where you'll find plenty of extensions to play with. When doing so, please keep in mind the following known issues:

Speed Dial extensions are not supported.
Extensions relying on keyboard shortcuts and/or mouse events might not work as expected.
Popup windows are currently launched as a new tab, which limits their functionality. This is a known issue, and as stated earlier, this is not the final design.
Buttons can become blurry on high-DPI screens.

If you don't know where to start, we found the following extensions to work quite well: Ghostery, Layers, Google Images Direct, HTTP Header, LastPass.

You can find all installed extensions by clicking the green Extensions icon in the Opera Menu, from where you can disable or uninstall them, and tweak various settings. Furthermore, the Install extension menu option allows you to sideload extensions from the local file system as well.

Screenshot of Opera Mobile Emulator with extension menu option

Screenshot of Opera Mobile Emulator showing all installed extensions

We have also added the option to load unzipped extensions for testing purposes, just like Opera desktop's Developer Mode. This is very handy for development, as it saves you from zipping and installing your extension over and over again. In order to use this, load Opera Mobile on your device or PC, choose the earlier mentioned Install extension menu option and navigate to the config.xml file of your unzipped extension. The extension will then be loaded in developer mode, and its settings page has a handy Reload menu option, which you can click to reload the extension after you've made some changes to the code.

And of course, you can use Opera Dragonfly's remote debugging functionality to inspect the inner workings of the installed extensions' JS, DOM and CSS. For detailed instructions on how to connect Opera Mobile with Opera Dragonfly, we refer to the remote debugging section in our Opera Dragonfly guide: it's as easy as clicking a few buttons.

Remote debugging of an extension with Opera Dragonfly

So, that's mobile extensions in a nutshell. Give it a spin, try out your favorite extensions, and let us know in the comments what you think about it!

Andreas Bovens

Andreas is based in Oslo, where he works for Opera Software as Extensions Product Manager + Developer Relations.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Comments

Mağruf Çolakoğlu

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

This is really good news. It was a dealyed feature but it seems just implemented. Thanks.
Patrick O'Reilly

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Will there be a mobile friendly version of the Opera Extensions site? At present the site doesn't detect mobile devices (like http://m.opera.com does) nor does it use responsive design/media queries (like http://my.opera.com)
carlos a. otero r.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Andreas .los felicito cada dia van mas adelante .opera sera en el futuro una compañia muy independiente.y cubrira un gran camino en el campo de las comunicaciones. Paso de creadores
d4rkn1ght

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Fantastic!! \m/
Chris Hills

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Please consider providing packages for Symbian Belle and Harmattan/Meego (N9).
ふ～ちゃん

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Is not URLFilter API supported?
Zini Stanley

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

what about it for S60, i want to try it too, but cant find the download
mega7star

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

it's great! But you make an API for speeddial extension?
wahyu3s

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

For Symbian please... :)
Dane

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Sweet! Now all I need is an android phone :D
Khaled Khalil

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

That could be good news if it is going to take place in final releases, but.. Opera mobile widgets would also be fine, it also looked promising at the time.
dsasha

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Coooooolll
Best Best Best
D1sasterp1ece

Friday, April 6, 2012

I can't wait to get my hands on a real smartphone to test this - Imma out of luck with my E51.
nidheeshr

Friday, April 6, 2012

good...
Narendra Parmar

Friday, April 6, 2012

Really useful extention. Hey need an extention for video chat so can chat on social network. And provide commentor to write website url. My blog http://narendrasblog.blogspot.com
Michał Borek

Friday, April 6, 2012

Waiting for Symbian Belle compilation.
Michał Borek

Friday, April 6, 2012

Tried on Android and looks nice :) But buttons should be placed somewhere else.

Anyway good work and I hope it will be pushed to official product ;)
QuHno

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Hm - I tested the emulator with my extension, it works just out of the box, but instead of the 64bit icon it seems to use the 18px icon which becomes a little bit blurry. Is there a documentation available how to change that?
found it. I replaced it by a 72*72px icon which scales well to the 18px of the desktop version and the (don't know what, but multiple of 8) px of the mobile versions.
Mates FM

Monday, April 9, 2012

very good, thx :-)
MCAnthony

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

I do not know whether there is Chinese IOS mobile phone client
myregs

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

controls not fixed. page keeps floating right and left while scrolling. impossible to click on links, because page start shaking while clicking. text also keeps reflawing outside of visible area.

extensions does work. not all though. extensions based on text selection doesn't work. they can't get selected text.
Silentalker

Saturday, April 14, 2012

need opera ext for nokia x2
iDarned

Monday, April 16, 2012

Waiting for Symbian. tnx team
Andrey Nikanorov

Monday, April 16, 2012

Thank you so much!
xcone

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

its very awesome
dereje demissie

Friday, April 20, 2012

opera is my day to day browser.but i can't read my language amharic font.please help on this.
Samiul Islam

Saturday, April 21, 2012

But not for symbian.
Please make it for symbian
abdulahi ali mussa

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Where did i get amharic
Ashok singh

Sunday, April 29, 2012

nice
Edison Fredy Castillo Quintero

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Thanks,
atar

Friday, May 18, 2012

Are those mobile extensions intended also to iOS devices?
renato93

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

its a good idea but on HVGA screens (for example Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro) the extension bar is too big, and the buttons in the menu also, see pics:
https://www.box.com/s/2c6b414b67e624714fc7
https://www.box.com/s/803a7d6ad4999fbce7bc
https://www.box.com/s/9f932ca6f57671a2146e
https://www.box.com/s/cf9b901bed1666c67a47
komalkoppikar29

Monday, May 28, 2012

hey in my opera mini for BlackBerry 8520 curve Facebook doesn't seems to work what should i do to rectify it
Matthieu

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Great news, works great out of the box on an htc desire.
With that it will be possible to use my userjs and urlfilter rules (in an extension) and that's a good news.
Charmed Espada

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

I love but it would be nice to have a rss extension or have it installed on it.
hardc0de

Monday, July 9, 2012

When opera labs 12 for the N9?
Christoph

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Since iPhone users are only able to get Opera Mini: Can you comment on adding support for extensions to it as well?
Benyamin Limanto

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

hmm does this exetensions will work to with opera mobile s60v3 and above? I think because many of us using symbian.. Please develop for symbian, thx....
Nimesh

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Nice implementation.
any updates planned? this post/build is 4 months old.
Vusi,Tumelo,Nngcan's-DjsRoack,Dlamini

Thursday, September 6, 2012

whoy ths opera mini dosnot downloaded 2my hand set mmm
dond624

Sunday, September 23, 2012

loaded this build on my archos a101 tablet. love it! has now become my default browser!
extensions BETTER make it into final, or i'm gonna be very unhappy
thanks for the great work.
btitan

Sunday, October 7, 2012

what can i do without flash plugins? Is there any solution?
Mike D

Saturday, November 10, 2012

I hope a polished version of this comes to Opera Mobile proper. I'm using it on Android ICS with lastpass and it's great alternative to Firefox for Android. I've even started using Opera desktop for syncing purposes and I like it.
nicambrose

Sunday, December 2, 2012

You know, if this is your idea of a 'rough' initial attempt, I really CANNOT wait for what you consider 'polished'. I recently purchased a Nexus 7, and both the stock 'mini' and mobile Opera browsers crashed repeatedly. (I found Chrome lacking, and had been using Firefox for the flash support on 4.2.1) Also, with no extension support, I felt that my experience was really lacking. I found and installed this, and it's been FLAWLESS. It's now my default browser. Loaded WOT, Lastpass, and an ad blocker, and it has made browsing so enjoyable and productive. You MUST leave extension support alone--see how subtle I was there? It really makes this browser one-of-a-kind in the mobile workspace. Thank you for the hard work, and I look forward to seeing your progress.
Joakim Wallman

Monday, December 3, 2012

I love this lab version,but it's getting pretty old. Will there be an updated version in a nerar future? Or even better, any plans to include it in the official version?
billyxmobile

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Works great!
Please include it in the regular version!

For Adblock plus if you get the message about "exceeded storage quota" you have to change opera:config#PersistentStorage|DomainQuotaForWidgetPreferences (http://www.opera.com/support/usingopera/operaini/#persistent_storage)
niks256

Monday, December 10, 2012

Why isn't it included in official release?
Tiago Wakabayashi

Monday, December 17, 2012

nice addiction, but the "install extension" but makes us to search any file instead take us to the extension site. And I didn't like of a extension bar. Maybe it worked in a huge screen but not in a Samsung Galaxy Y. Please, if is to access the extensions i prefer use the extension button.
hairycheez

Monday, December 31, 2012

nice update, the only problem iv found is that it does not look good when I put it on a tablet. I love the addons!
Gildas35

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Any updates on when it will be included in the official release?
ahmed2bori

Friday, February 1, 2013

The extension it is a good development but it seems there is no nokia S40 version. If there is let me know.

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